If they build it, will they come? Thatís the question reporter Brian Leaf answers by following the stuff that cities, county and states build to attract and keep factories, jobs, stores, airplanes, colleges, tourists and residents to burgs and
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If they build it, will they come? Thatís the question reporter Brian Leaf answers by following the stuff that cities, county and states build to attract and keep factories, jobs, stores, airplanes, colleges, tourists and residents to burgs and Ďburbs throughout the region.

It was particularly hard for me while documenting the lives of people in the throes of poverty for our Poor Town series this year. Poor Town is a collection of stories about residents swept up in an economic landscape that, from 2000 to 2010, saw the 30,000 people living in poverty become 60,000.

Many of us are but a couple of paychecks from being in financial trouble.

I met people who were homeless, unemployed, struggling single parents and people looking to move from their neighborhoods to escape crime and violence that are often poverty's companion.

But I also met people trying to build, or rebuild, their lives.

I got to know Dicie Lindsey-Cooper, 18, and Jordan Carpenter, 20, struggling single moms who hope to leverage education into careers to support themselves and give their children opportunities.

Lindsey-Cooper has three children and wants to become a pediatric nurse. Carpenter has completed training to work in a salon cutting hair, but for now is working as a call-service customer service rep. Rockford videographer Pablo Korona captured their struggles.

But the hardest story for me to write was about Randy Wells, a developmentally disabled man who jumped to his death Nov. 25 from the Jefferson Street bridge, the Monday before Thanksgiving.

I didn't know Wells, but I saw him regularly downtown. So did hundreds of others who shared memories through Facebook, told me or emailed recollections of Wells, 43, a small man who moved at race-walker's pace, head down with his arms pumping, always going someplace.

The city's sidewalks were his highways.

Wells was visible and likeable, his acquaintances say. He was always looking for someone to arm-wrestle, and he loved to be among crowds at city events. He enjoyed music and solving Sudoku puzzles.

Public outpouring of tales and grief for a man that many people recognized but few knew was real.

But Wells's motive for jumping into the icy river is destined to remain one of life's vagaries, and the people who saw him or knew him well are left to wonder why.